Hydrogen Fuel Cells Are Becoming Too Big to Ignore

Fuel cells have a great future.
Just not, IMO, in single passenger vehicles.

 

motley fool really loves to hype the headlines on yahoo.

 

At least ones using hydrogen.

 

Is the headline referring the small interior and packaging difficulties?

Sorry, I had to swing at the huge floating softball......

 

It isn't the size of the components, it is the incredible expense of the fueling infrastructure and the inconvenience of fueling.

Fueling infrastructure for centralized fleets would be much simpler.
And while some tout the 5 minute refuel time (which seems to be a 5-20 minute window) that still is less convenient than a 2-3 minute gas fuel-up.
A nationwide level 2 charging infrastructure that includes every workplace and public parking spot will be far quicker and cheaper than nationwide hydrogen stations.

 

USA ignored wind power about 20 years or so. We can likewise ignor H2 FCV if we want to. Each country will tend to pursue energy options that it likes best politically.

 

Futuristic Cars Are Great, Just Make Sure You're Back Before Five - Bloomberg Business

Note the 2018 Bloomberg numbers

4200 Japn
2300 US
1200 Europe
700 Korea

Note these are far lower than other sources For instance CARB estimated 10,500 in california, but last year they still had 50,000 by 2017.

The question is how many drivers can Toyota find that want to pay more to live with that limitation. IMHO they are probably on track, with there low estimates of maybe 3000 a year.

Japan Admits It Won’t Reach Hydrogen Fuel Cell Filling Station Goal For 2016 | Transport Evolved

Note car maker's like toyota are picking up the operational costs of the stations in Japan until they are at break even, or the money runs out. CARB is allocating $100,000/year of fees (aka taxes) for operation and maintenance losses for the first 3 years of its stations in California.

 

You have the numbers on the above statement? - post them up so we can all see the quickness of installation, cost of construction and operating costs of level 2 charging station vs. hydrogen station.

Both on the local level and nationwide levels.

We await your numbers - so post them.

DBCassidy

 

Of course not. It's the same old story... Hydrogen doesn't make any sense. Electric is a no-brainer.

In reality, we're not going to see level-2 availability popping up in garages for apartments & condos for a very long time. What landlord is going to foot that bill? Just look at the adoption of it in private garages for hint of not-so-quick. I know of many who would have to run a 220 line out to their garage. That can be done and could be justifiably affordable, but they're just plain not going to do it regardless. Other priorities and expenses push that off.

Say they get past all that, it's cheap & easy. How does the typical 2-car household plug in?

Clearly, actual numbers are needed.

 

Gimme a lightly used PiP2 if I can wait that long

 

Probably not in Minnesota. In Austin 11 complexes have chargers, and the local utility is in the process of installing them in 12 more. I'm sure utilities in California will be even more pro-active.

I agree it will take a long time until these are quick and easy. It probably will be slowest in places with shrinking populations, but its not that difficult. In austin we also have the only private (university) hydrogen station in the state. While poping up chargers in apartments and condos is quick and easy, and prices continue to go down from a small level (L2 + wireing in austin for 2 spots is about $8000 before the subsidies and much cheaper on new construction). The H2 station is only really for education and research filling a plug-in bus, and won't grow fast in my state.

Austin energy is doing a local report. I'm sure NRG the leader installing these things will also have a report. Its fairly new. On the other hand the CARB report is now anual on hydrogen station progress, and it is much much more expensive and much slower.

Absolutely. Most people charge at home or work. Most phev owners, even half of volt owners simply use 110 outlets because they are "good enough". Most surveys say that if people had to pay very much they would never use public chargers.

I would say this is kind of funny on a fuel cell thread, where hydrogen is advertised as the most common element on earth, without talking about how to free it from its fossil fuels or water.

I haven't heard anyone claim that L1s outside of peoples home or work should be included. I do hear that in an emergency people can use any outlet. Key that emergency. There are over 11,000 chargers in the US now though, and plug share multiplies that with private locations and available outlets.
Alternative Fuels Data Center: Electric Vehicle Charging Station Locations
Only 1262 are Fast Chargers with 2810 plugs, but this number only needs to cover 10% of long trips. As Chevy and Nissan offer longer range bevs I would expect the number to grow rapidly.

Definitely infrastructure is part of the problem of bev (not phev) adoption, but it is defienitely a solvable one.

 

Being a DIY kind of guy, I added a 240v level II charger (want not need) for $27 in standard parts sourced from my local home store but I realize I'm an outlier. At H2's current price, driving costs are about 25 cents/mile so that one 10 mile round trip to the home store would have cost me $2.50 in an FCV vs. 25 cents on wall electricity. I'm going to need more compelling reasons than corporate allegiance.

 

Here are 22 case studies in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area. And, a few more in other states.
Some as simple as giving a Leaf owner permission to install their own level 2 charger.

Case studies

Yes, it is just a start, but as you said, it is a lot easier to install these than Hydrogen stations.

 

Actually it IS easy to ignore. And millions of drivers are NEVER gonna drive FCV. NEVER. They will and are already choosing BEVs. It's pretty simple actually. how's that 5-10 years working? And why the dirty little secret of inefficient production of H2? why is that ignored? Why would anyone do that? hmmm, let's see...big oil/fracking just loves the H2 idea. Yay! More water use and dumping of toxic chems and more energy usage than ANY BEV out there! Alright, that ought to work. not. It's just too sad. Are we that stupid of a species? yes, and alot greedy. Diesel has been weeded out and so will H2 for passenger cars. Wait, had another thought. how do you get the hydrogen out there to the masses? oh that's right, trucks. Do they run on fairy dust too? what are we thinking?

 

Not quite sure how you got there.

huh? Say you want to go from las vegas to the grand canyon. How do you refill your fcv? Did you forget that filling a fcv requires that someone first has to build that hydrogen station. Can't a phev not only fill as convenient as gas, but more, as you can charge it at home and/or use any gas station. How is a fcv more convenient than that. BEVs can make many trips that a fcv can not make.

Do you mean the 11,000 public chargers in the US? Yep, on our way.

If you mean the public hydrogen stations in the US, it appears we have 12 today.
Alternative Fuels Data Center: Alternative Fueling Station Counts by State
Toyota says we will have 4 more by the end of the year. There are 54 more planned or under cosntruction, most of them funded. Reports from California, Japan, and Germany say this is going slower than expected and most countries are revising figures down. I guess we are on our way to a demo phase, but it is going poorly. Japan which has the most completed public hydrogen, on many stations only operate only from 9-5. Europe is the most enthusiastic promising 400 stations for 500 million euros at the end of 2023, or Japan a nationwide skeleton network at the end of 2030. What if the demo phase fails? Will we even get to 1000 stations worldwide, before they start closing again like they have done in the US?

Yes there is some funding for stations, but this is not the hundred billion dollar funding a nationwide network would need in the US. This is demo phase funding. 50 of the first 57 stations in california can fill 200 kg/day or less. None is planned for more than 350 kg/day. That means no station in the US that is planned has the throughput of a 8 stall tesla supercharger location. The low hydrogen volume is one reason so few cars can be serviced, but higher volume stations cost more money. The higher volume stations in japan cost $5M each from bloomberg reporting yesterday.